Ed Wojcicki: Springfield Urban League continues to set remarkable example

Sunday

Jan 5, 2014 at 1:01 AM

I’m mystified that one of Springfield’s largest, most successful social service agencies isn’t one of the most talked-about points of pride for our community. It should be.

I’m talking about the Springfield Urban League, which runs our region’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs and does much, much more.

It’s no longer debatable that educating children in their first few years of life is one of the most valuable lifetime investments given to any child. So it’s noteworthy that 700 children are getting a head start in our local programs.

Ask the Head Start director, Deborah Lahey, about the program’s successes and 20 minutes later she hasn’t finished her list. Local Head Start children exceed national averages in performance, and Lahey is one of Springfield’s most passionate educators.

At the other end of the spectrum is a young adult who moved here from Chicago looking for a job. He connected with the Urban League’s Male Involvement Program, which helps local men learn the emotional and financial responsibilities of parenting. He enrolled in the Nurturing Fathers Program and found a good job.

He is one of the men in our community who defy familiar statistics about young African-American males who abandon their children and whose unemployment rates are high. The Male Involvement Program gives extra personal attention to men needing more education or jobs. They talk about being “R.E.A.L. Dads,” which stands for Responsible, Effective, Accountable, Loving.

This two-year-old program is led by Carlos Norris, who inspires men with his enthusiasm and leads by example as one of Springfield’s most sharply dressed professionals. The program does not rely on systemic social changes. It gets to the individual level to raise up one man at a time. Without saying so, it follows the wisdom of Mother Teresa’s advice: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

This is the Urban League’s story in Springfield, which has been around for 87 years: Helping children. Helping families. Helping the disenfranchised.

It now offers computer literacy programs and workforce training. It is helping people get insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It has a Robotics Program, with the help of local engineers and computer experts, to encourage students to increase their interest in engineering, science, technology and math. It has many programmatic partners and connections to Lincoln Land Community College, the University of Illinois Springfield and historically black colleges around the nation. It’s a $12.8 million enterprise that is responsible for 250 jobs locally.

It’s all under the leadership of one of Springfield’s best CEOs, Nina Harris, a Springfield native who leads the agency with extraordinarily high standards.

I’m not being subjective. The Springfield Urban League and 11 other cities’ affiliates were singled out in 2013 by Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, who said at the national conference, “We set a high standard, and you all have met it. You are our best and you set a remarkable example for everyone in the Urban League Movement.”

This recognition came just two years after Harris and the Springfield affiliate received the national league’s Performer of the Year Champion Award in 2011.

But they don’t have a public relations person on the Springfield staff. They don’t manufacture “outrage” about something in the news. And they don’t spend time looking for someone to blame for the challenges they face, which is what much of today’s news is built around.

They just help people, especially children and African-Americans. They see education, health care, family reunification and job preparation among the critical building blocks to help local residents with long-term, permanent stability and advancement. They don’t just run programs in each of those areas. They serve more than 10,000 people a year, one at a time.

These should be talking points for all Springfield civic leaders, even if the Urban League’s own leaders don’t ask for the publicity — which they probably won’t.

Ed Wojcicki is an administrator at the University of Illinois Springfield and just completed two years as the Springfield Urban League’s board chair. He can be reached at ewojc1@uis.edu.